Evie Burne - Bound by Blood

For the ankle—which now looked like her Aunt Tiny’s ankle, minus the coffee-colored support hose—there was RICE: rest, ice, compression and what was E? Elevation. She was sure she had an ace bandage somewhere.

Mustering up what was left of her energy, Maddy got into her nightgown, hobbled with her umbrella into the kitchen to make an ice bag, and then hobbled back to her bedroom. Too tired to deal with looking for the ace bandage, she opted for bed and television. RIE was enough for tonight.

Aiming for maximum brain soothing, she chose to watch her well-worn DVD of the original Star Trek series, Season One. With her foot up on pillows, the covers up around her chin, and the sonorous tones of Leonard Nimoy in her ears, she was feeling no pain. If only someone would bring her a vodka tonic, she’d be perfect.

It didn’t take long for her to doze off. She fought it, meaning to watch the episode to the end, but her eyes kept closing. Her half-dreams and the Star Trek episode started to meld in strange ways. Dr. McCoy gave her a sympathetic look and one of those cure-all shots to the neck. Her bed was on the transporter platform and she knew she really needed to get off it, but she was too tired to move. Gregor Faustin was on the transporter platform, too, barefoot. He turned off the TV and made a strange gesture with his hand, as if drawing something in the air.

“This is a dream, Madelena.”

“Well, duh.”

He came to sit on the side of her bed, down by her feet, a heavy, brooding presence. His shirt sleeves were rolled to his elbows, his hands were clasped together. A shock of hair hung over his eyes. “Why aren’t you more angry at me for hitting you?”

Maddy shrugged. “What good would that do? Nothing can change what happened. All I can control is how I feel about it.” She never intended to be the Dalai Lama of Queens, but this was a pragmatic philosophy. If she got upset about every little thing she’d be pushing up daisies.

Faustin shook his head. “That’s very Zen of you, but it’s not enough for me.”

With clinical precision, he lifted the blanket that covered her legs, folding it back to her knee and putting aside the ice bag. His fingers gently traced over the bandage on her scraped-up calf. His touch was so soothing, so inherently pleasurable, that Maddy sank backward, falling deep, deep into her pillows.

His voice came to her through a thickening fog. “I’m going to heal your wounds.”

“Okay.” She watched him under heavy eyelids. How strange that he could be there and not be there at the same time.

Like a big, dark cat he curled himself over her left calf. His back blocked her view, but she felt a sharp sting as he ripped off her bandage, followed by soothing warmth and wetness of his tongue lapping the wound. Verrrrrry unsanitary. Oh, but it was nice.

It felt real.

It had to be a dream. Gregor Faustin would not be licking her wounds otherwise.

She did not remember wondering this aloud, but Faustin stopped his licking.

“Of course it’s a dream. How would I get in here? I locked the door on the way out.”

Maddy relaxed again. “Makes sense.”

His tongue traced its way up her calf, and she knew he was following the line of the big cut. This one he worked on a long time, licking it longways first, probing its edges with an agile tongue, then lashing it crossways with a thousand tiny flicks. The surface of his tongue was scratchy, like a cat’s, and every lick came with a kick of pleasure.

Maddy realized this might be one of those kinds of dreams. Why not? Testing the waters, she said, “If you want to take that tongue of yours northwards, that’s a-okay with me.”

He laughed—sort of. Or maybe he was choking. So it was not one of those dreams.

Changing position so that he lay stretched on his belly, he shifted his attention to her twisted ankle. With cool fingers he probed the swelling, and then lapped the skin of her ankle in an exploratory way, like a lizard testing the air.

“This swelling is fluid gathering around the joint,” he said as he smoothed his hand up her calf, around her knee. Wanting that touch all over her body, she bent her knee, and his hand slid up her thigh. Way, way up.

“Jesus,” she whispered as a flood of erotic images passed through her mind. She and Faustin assuming every position ever invented, then going on to make up some more of their own.

“Maddy!” The sharpness of his voice cut through the fog. She opened her eyes. His cheek rested against her calf. When he saw he had her attention he turned his head and kissed her knee. “Stay with me. Does this leg hurt anywhere else?”

She shook her head no.

Cupping her heel in one palm, he raised her foot and began to cover it with slow kisses. Not just on the swollen ankle, but along the arch of her foot.

“You have stars on your toes…” he murmured, his voice throaty and rich. He referred to her creative pedicure, which she rather liked herself: one yellow cartoon star on each nail.

His tongue swirled around her big toe, and found its way into the space between her toes. She cried out. The sensation was not ticklish, as she’d expect, but deep and warm and unbearably pleasurable. No one had ever kissed her feet before.

His mouth traveled back up her foot to her ankle. There he started to lick in a slow circle around the anklebone, or where the anklebone would be if it were not hidden by the swelling. A deep humming came from him as he did this, and his licks built in intensity, his rough tongue waking her skin, waking her whole body.

Like a white hot arrow, the sensation building in her foot flew upward and pierced her between the legs. She wanted him there, eating her out. She wanted him inside, thrusting.

Suddenly she was open with longing, flooding wet. His fingers danced along the sole of her foot, his tongue flicked and probed, his kisses were deep and sucking.

Forget the damn foot, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t speak—she was coming. Her back arched, her mouth opened, and at the peak something pierced her ankle, giving her release.

Her legs jerked as the convulsion rocked through her, but Faustin held her foot tight. He was sucking on it, and the sucking felt like heaven, felt like nothing in this world.

The orgasm passed into quietness, and his sucking subsided. Then he nuzzled her foot, flicking his tongue here and there. She smiled with contentment…and bit by bit her mind cleared.

This was real.

Maddy straightened her glasses and puzzled at the man lounging at her feet with one hand wrapped possessively around her ankle.

She just had…foot sex?

With Gregor Faustin?

Who ran her over?

“This is not a dream.”

Faustin raised his head and said sternly, “Yes, it is.”

“Bullshit.” A little slither of panic passed through her. “This is too weird to be a dream.”

Scowling, he crawled over her, straddling her hips and planting his hands on either side of her head. His lips were red and swollen, his expression fierce as he stared down at her. “It is what I say it is, Madelena.”

“But—”

“Shh.” He grabbed her jaw and turned her face to one side. His tongue ran up her temple.

Maddy shouted into the pillow, “Stop goddamn licking me!”

Fingers hard, he turned her face back toward him. “Look in my eyes.”

She slapped his hand away. “Why, are you trying to hypnotize me or something?”

His jaw dropped open, in offense, or amazement, she didn’t know. Then he snapped it shut and his eyes narrowed.

“You are the most impossible—” He cut himself off and drew a deep breath. “All I am trying to do is right a wrong.”

“By exercising your foot fetish?”

“You’re the one who came. Who has the fetish?”